Frannie stood, straddling Duncan's corpse. Strange. Duncan was a man to whom she owed so much, the man who saved her life and yet she'd felt more guilt over killing Beraht. The Fade did odd things to a body.
Somehow, she doubted what she was seeing was really Weisshaupt. It looked too dwarven in make with its heavy stones and encased ceiling overhead and the lack of windows. Frannie thought it was beautiful, in a way. It was certainly comfortable and homey. Maybe it was the smell; dirt, metal and stone dust.
Duncan was dead. Duncan was dead before this strange dream. When she woke, everyone else would confirm that fact and Frannie would not be at fault for what occurred here. Her head was swimming on the edge of absurd. She needed to wash her face in the fountain that had randomly appeared in front of her just beyond Duncan's body.
The fountain made her skin tingle. It made her bones feel warm. Frannie felt everything fade to blackness, which was an odd thing considering that she had to be asleep already in order to be dreaming. She wondered if she could do that. If she could go to sleep in a dream. It seemed a little repetitive.
When Frannie came to and could reestablish where her eyes were and where they were located on her body, she realized she wasn't alone. Nema was there with what looked to be a cup of tea next to a man with dark and matted hair. The landscape was a fractured, purple island and Frannie was lost.
"A mouse?" the man said. He sank to the ground and knotted his hands in his hair.
"A mouse," Nema said. Her pinky pointed out rigidly as she sipped at her tea.
Frannie hurried over to them, half expecting them to disappear before she reached their sides. They didn't. "How do we get out of here?" she asked.
The man looked up at her, bleary-eyed. "There's more of you? Maybe there is hope, after all."
Nema gestured to her and kneeled down on the unnatural surface of shiny black and silver rocks. "There are several minor demons that protect sloth, each on their own island." As the mage talked, she ran her finger across the ground. The magic of the Fade coupled with Nema's own will caused deep grooves of a makeshift diagram to appear beneath her finger. "Everyone else must be trapped here, as well. You find the others, I will face the demons."
Frannie shook her head. "We should stick together," she said. "You'll need help against those demons. You'll have a better chance with me."
"No."
"What do you mean, no?" Frannie demanded. "Apart we're weaker and we do no one any good by getting killed."
"We're all trapped in dreams," Nema said. She stood and abandoned her diagram. "Yours felt real, didn't it? With each passing second the demon's delusion is more secure in your mind until it's impossible to extract you from it. You need to release everyone from those dreams and as quickly as possible."
"Then we free everyone, first," Frannie said.
"Likewise Sloth and all the demons protecting Sloth are feeding on our corporeal forms as we speak." Nema brushed herself off with one hand and flicked her tea away with the other. The cup vanished as soon as it left her hand. "There's no point in freeing everyone from their fantasies if their bodies are dead husks by the time we do so." She turned and stared at Frannie with her almond-shaped eyes. "So. You find the others, I will face the demons."
Frannie gave a weary nod of her head. With that, a staff materialized into Nema's hands and she disappeared into a cloud of purple mist. Frannie sighed.
"I hope she knows what she's doing," the man murmured.
"She thinks she does, at any rate," Frannie grumbled.
"Those demons will consort with you, talk," he said. "They offer you all kinds of powers, abilities, desires. But they always exact a price for it. May she be wise enough to refuse."
"I think..." that she had little idea as to who that woman she just let frolick off into the Fade to play with demons was. "...I need to find my friends."
Whatever Nema was doing without her seemed to change the landscape gradually. Doorways appeared or increased in size, pathways became more visible. There were things that Frannie began to see when she stared directly at them as opposed to just seeing them in her periphery. She found Faeron, first. All she had to do was follow the smells and sounds of Orzammar.
It was a quieter dream than Frannie had anticipated for the warrior prince. There was a beautiful woman with glossy black hair wound in intricate braids humming softly as she stirred the pot that dangled over a cooking fire. The beadwork and embroidery sewn into her pastel gown were far too elaborate for any servant.
From his chair, Faeron laughed. He actually laughed. "Will you leave that alone and let the cooks earn their pay?"
"But Gorim will be here for supper and I know what he likes," the woman replied. Still, she set the ladle aside and strolled over to him. She scooped up the small, swaddled bundle on his belly and sat in his lap. "All the deshyrs say I haven't a thought in my pretty, little head. That you married me for looks alone."
"All the deshyrs," Faeron said, "are wrong."
"So you do not think me attractive enough to marry based on looks alone?" His wife giggled and laid the babe on top of his chest. "Trian will be a strong warrior. Like his daddy. But with a little luck, he won't place his foot in his own mouth nearly so often."
Frannie cleared her throat. "Faeron."
The woman jerked her head up and coal black eyes regarded Frannie shrewdly. "Faeron, it's a brand."
"Faeron," Frannie said. "We need to go."
Faeron edged his wife off his lap and stood up. "I don't know you. You need to leave."
"I don't want her to look at our baby," his wife insisted cradling the child to her breast.
"Think hard, Faeron," Frannie said. She could feel her muscles tense up, wanting to reach for her weapons, but she forced her hands out in front of her passively. "You don't belong here. This is all wrong."
"She could be sent here to assassinate us!" His wife was falling into hysterics.
"Assassinate who?" Frannie demanded. "You don't exist! Faeron, who is this woman?"
Faeron reached for his sword. "Don't be ridiculous, this is my wife. Her name is... her name..."
"You know my name," his wife snapped. "Now kill this casteless whore before she murders our baby!"
"Your name," Faeron muttered. "Why didn't tell me your name?" He rubbed at his brow.
"You coward," his wife sneered. "You eunuch! I shall kill her myself!" And with that, the woman pitched the infant straight at Frannie.
Frannie planned to tell Faeron that what she did was instinctive. Later. His sword dropped to his feet and his knees went slack. Seeing that, Frannie knew she'd never be able to tell him the truth. That his baby had no face. Only a jaw open wide with rows of razor-sharp teeth. That Frannie wanted to kill it as soon as it came after her because it sickened and terrified her.
The demon woman took that as an opportunity to flank her. Frannie realized too late; bony fingers were wrapping around her throat. She twisted just as teeth sank deep into her shoulder. Frannie fell over, fumbling for the dagger in her boot.
"Faeron!" An elbow to the temple and a sucker punch to the kidney. "Your Majesty!" Frannie didn't know what she was screaming, anymore. Only that her muscles burned and her wounds stung and that damned demon had the tenacity of a deep stalker. "Prince Faeron, fight like an Aeducan!"
Fran's last words were punctuated by a warm, wet spray across her face. Demons, it would seem, bled like anyone else. She wiped the stickiness from her nose and cheek and tried to ignore precisely how a dwarven longsword could mangle a body if someone skilled enough decided to misuse it. Frannie kicked the demon off of her and rubbed at the scratchs along her throat.
"I asked you to not call me that," Faeron said quietly. He wiped his sword off on his wife's dress. "I'm as much an Aeducan as you are. That title is dead."
Frannie shrugged. "Only as dead as you want it, I guess."
He grimaced. "As long as Aeducans are practitioners of fratricide, the line deserves to die. I don't expect you to understand."
"Suppose not," she said. "Then again, you're talking to me way more than I expected you to."
"You know the stone. The others do not." Faeron spoke with transluscent lips. The landscape of the Fade seeped through his body gently at first and then with an overpowering intensity. His form dissipated into nothingness and left her alone. Frannie did the only other thing she knew how to, she continued on.